Enroll early!

Church Leader Alive! is a unique conference experience designed to kick-start your passion and mobilize innovation and mission. It will also kick-start mission and mobilize and innovate passion. 

It’s that time once again, time to get in your early registration for Church Leader Alive!  in pristine Ellendale, North Dakota, the weekend of April 30 - 31 in the plush Ellendale Hilton.
  What can you expect at this year's ALIVE! ?

• The most engaging, topic-unpacking speakers ever!
• A host of dynamic vendors, pastors and best-selling authors converge to reveal top, life-changing, skill-revitalization secrets to totally renew your leadership ministry
• Break-out sessions, break-in sessions, workshops and seminars every leader will find mind-blowing, equipping and revitalizing -- learn how to leverage missional workers so they might use words to penetrate culture and bring real change
• Deluxe accommodations loaded with every amenity possible, from Perrier at the bedside to large-screen, Twitter-enabled hot tubs - all in spectacular prairie surroundings near the exclusive Ellendale golf course and country club

Church Leader Alive! 2012 challenges cutting-edge church ministry professionals to recharge and replenish their entire worship performance, through lots of words. Even MORE words than last year. More words than ever before! Heart-confronting words and truth-focused words; best-selling words and top-expert words; mentor-blasting words and truth-engagement words. You will leave packing the most soul-working, God-enthralling words EVER!

This year, movement-movers and missional milestone makers will discover new launching strategies for planting dynamic cultures and exploring compelling conversations on authentic leadership formation events.

Don’t miss it! We have a whole line-up of keynoters waiting to transform your worship journey. Discounts galore for early registrants! If you book four attendees, the prices will be in the basement. But hurry! The best prairie-view rooms will go fast!

Once again, we’ll hear from all your big-name celebrity speakers and best-selling authors.

• Renowned multi-campus pastor John Worshipmonger speaks on forceful and dynamic ways to reap rewards from the gospel. Learn how to book cruises and get others to pay your way.
• Glen Blather, Best-selling author and Leadership-Mentoring expert, challenges pastors to increase giving by the Four-fold Flattery-Fortune Nexus. He builds on the idea of driving pledges and planting promises. No-fail tips on how to increase offerings more than ever before
  
• Mark Salesemann, pastor of Laodocean Worship Center - a thriving, 25,000 member fellowship - shows how to turn a culture-confronting, multi-platform electronic presence into piles of cash, at the touch of a button
• Blockbuster author Ben Doindat, lists 36 face-palm-simple pointers on churning out best selling books of lists - to boost your community presence. He’ll show you how to plug your books during worship services and also at other churches, for that extra royalty boost
• Rich Klerrick, Senior Pastor at the multi-campus CrashCrunch Hollow Church in Ellendale, ND, shows you how to use the age-old lure of sexual power to reach 20 and 30-somethings and draw attendees from an entire region. Hold a gimmicky marriage sex marathon event and draw in the unchurched and churched alike
• Josh Joaching, head of the international Watch-us-Grow Believer's Fellowship Association, demonstrates how you, too, can organize a pastor conference and watch as Jesus-followers press wads of bills into your hands every time you turn around

And NEW THIS YEAR!: Chris Godfurher, of the new BloggerBusters Security Corporation will present workshops on Christian security measures: Church Security: Why you need a strategy and how you can use Christian muscle-men to keep pesky bloggers from embarrassing you more than once.

This conference will help your creative team discover new avenues of inspiration and vision mastery. It empowers and recharges!

Register today for a 30 percent discount. For your conference pack, simply send a $666 deposit to Luxury Pastor Resorts c/o Judas Jeffries, 666 College Park Circle, Gehenna, SD 57666

Vacuum-Model Churches

It's the wave of the future, so install a new beater bar, and plug 'er in. What to do about your stubborn old church refusing to budge from the dark ages? Frustrated about your congregation that somehow thinks that the words of Charles Wesley or Fanny Crosby can even compare to Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, Yes, Lord? (Oh, wait. That's an oldie now.) Or maybe your staid denomination just isn't getting with the program fast enough.

Well, now there is a solution to all these problems: The Vacuum Model of Church Development. Simply this.

1. If yours is an old, fuddy-duddy church and missional members want to make it relevant, you just build. You don't tell the aging members that after the new building is ready for move-in day that the words will be on the screen in front, the hymn books headed for the incinerator and they'll have to stand for 40 minutes of the service. heh No, you forge ahead with Contemporary 101 and let the geezers follow along or amble on out into the parking lot.
2. Here's where the vacuum part comes in. Old "stuck" churches, stuck in their ways, still want to grow. New megachurches want to grow. What to do? Vacuum! The megachurch swallows up the old church and both are happy.
To make it sound all right, you call it "revitalization." One church growth expert puts it this way: "Revitalization mergers also allow smaller struggling churches to have a new beginning by being adopted by a stronger vibrant church." See, the struggling church is the old people, hymn-besotted, "stuck" church and the stronger, vibrant one is the one with the sound system and lights and purchased sermon package. Everyone wants a new beginning!
3. Those stodgy, old denominations still love new growth. When offered a merger with a vibrant (multi-media drenched, multi-site, multi-plex) church they will jump at the chance because it means greater numbers. Then you don't have to worry about those pesky denominational headquarters calling the shots and nixing all your great plans for sexy services. As the same church growth expert says: "Denominations increasingly will take their lead from their growing churches rather than the other way around." No more having to bow to denominational bigwigs.
It's time to power on and vacuum up the old, the small, the obstinate.
Eureka!

When things go wrong

In the culturally relevant church, when a  team member exits, it's not just a matter of leaving the 90 and 9 and working to reconcile the brother. If the stray lamb doesn't return, you can't just shake off the dust from your feet and move on. No. In the relevant church, things are a little more complicated than that.

If it's creative, edgy and original, it must be of God

Of course, to be creative, edgy and original, you have to avoid using phrases like "of God." We'll just say, "cool" and that pretty much means the same thing, right? God is cool, so if our stuff is unique and imaginative, it's cool and kind of like God's stuff. We can rap, we can use the right fonts, we can paste together relevant-looking video montages and edit them with the coolest techno-gadgets, so of course we're Kingdom-minded and approved. We'll ride the borders, turning off the traditionalists - who will sit there, clucking in their pews at our tattoos or headgear - and we'll know we're in the center of His wil-- Well, the center of What's Happening Now.

You're not ordinary, you're a Creative

You are artistic. You don't think; you create. God has gifted you with extraordinary powers of imagination, and that's why your gifts are in such demand. You have a knack for design, or music, or social networking, or blogging, or expressive thinking. You are one of the inner circle the leaders depend on. You possess a hotline to the Holy Spirit's most important endeavors.
Because of this, your church values your input. It sends you to creative conferences and pays your way. You are among the church elite. You gather with other creatives at brainstorming events. You move the church to embrace new technologies and avenues of ministry, outside the box. In short, you are not like other Christians. You are a step above and you should make this plain to all who don't share your gift.
You should post artsy and relevent comments on Twitter several times a day to let followers know that you are the one to follow. You should quote the right people and develop a persona that screams: Baluga! Or something equally mystifying and esoteric. After all, you're not just an average Joe.

It's all about what it's all about!

And it's all about this:



"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.
Found on the Be Deviant church site: http://www.bedeviant.com/are-your-worship-services-contemporvant

This video really hits home. This IS the heart of contemporvant worship!

Well, it did until its makers removed it, but somehow, it's back again.
Here is a post about  the initial removal, which is almost as good because of the comments about "planning worship."

A commenter on a CT blog provided the new link, so it's back!

Dump The Message version for something more cutting edge

Does The Message seem a bit old now? Reminding you of the old Authorized Version? That's because it IS! Cutting edge Christians, pastors and lay people alike, are digging into the latest, most culturally relevant translation yet -- the LOLcats version. Here is a sample from Luke 2: Sheep-doodz n Angels


8 Then there wuz sheep-doods in teh field, an they wuz watchin teh sheep in teh dark. Iz vry vry boring. srsly.9 An suddenly, visible angel! An glory! O noez!!10 But teh angel sed, "DONT AFRAID OF ENYTHING! it r ok, you can has gud news for all teh doodz!11 Todai in da city ov David, you can has sayvur! is Christ da Lord! w00t!12 Iz sign fer u, find da kitteh wrapd like brrito in a big fud dish."13 An suddenly, moar angelz! They sez, 14 "w00t to teh Ceiling Cat! An peace fer doodz he luffs! Kthxbai."

Use scripture to accessorize your message

New Paradigm leaders face a weekly challenge: how to preach an engaging message without letting old memes, like scripture-reading, detract from the relevant impression.
Churchy people expect dry, old passages from the Bible to inform the sermon. But the unchurched, who we must put above all else, are turned off by chapters, verses and anything that sounds like you are telling them what to do.
Still, the Bible does sound authoritative and can lend credibility to your message. So you do have to use it from time to time. The challenge, then, is to put the cart of relevance before the horse of scripture. It is not that difficult to do.
First, you must preach to the “felt” needs of your congregation, or rather, of your unchurched and unchurchy congregation. These needs can be as varied as child discipline tips, menu suggestions or budgeting help – the meaty issues of today’s upwardly-mobile couples.
Once you have identified a need, you can come up with engaging and humorous examples to illustrate your solutions and advice. Every once in a while, you can toss in a scripture to lend authority to your pronouncements on the “felt” need of the week.
Scripture is great as occasional seasoning. Sprinkle a little here and there for effect. Not too many passages, of course -- just one or two. The main thing is to be so radically different from the old churchy ways that your service won’t be recognized as “church.” That means you need to limit scripture.
Remember, scripture is window dressing, accessorizing. It’s a seasoning, not the main course. It helps accentuate the more important points that YOU want to bring out.